Over the past few weeks we have looked at the current slate of coaches/managers in the NFL, NBA, and MLB and come up with a list of the five best in each of those organizations. Today, we’ll look at the college game to determine who the best are at that level.

As I began thinking about this list, I was presented with a dilemma that I had not seen in the other categories quite as much. The dilemma is: exactly how do you determine what or who is best? Are the best coaches those with the most wins? Are they the coaches who have the best graduation rates among their players? Are they the ones with the most championships? Or is it really a combination of all these things?

Perhaps, you have your own criteria with which you would make these choices and that is just fine because these lists are subjective at best. The people you consider the best would not even make it to my top ten list. And the opposite can hold just as easily. The other element that really makes this list so difficult is how do you compare coaches of different sports. How does one begin to compare a college football coach with a baseball coach? You get the idea- this is not a scientific endeavor, just a sports fan expressing his thoughts.

So, as I tried to do this I whittled my options down and came up with six coaches that I thought had had the greatest long-term influence in the college game. I came up with three football coaches, two basketball, and one baseball. All of these come from Division I teams and while there are many well-deserving coaches in the smaller schools and in women’s sports, I only considered the big boys based solely on the premise that we have no way of knowing how a small college coach would do against tougher competition. You also won’t see Pat Summitt or Geno Auriemma on this list for the same reason. We can’t compare their accomplishments in women’s division with the men because we don’t know how they’d do if they coached men’s sports.

With that being said, let me start with the best college baseball coach today and his long-term record supports that feeling. Mike Martin has been the baseball coach at Florida State University since 1980. He is sixth on the all-time list of wins for coaches (1627) and is second in winning percentage (.745). Martin has led the Seminoles to the College World Series 13 times but have yet to win it all, his only negative drawback. He has never had a losing season and, remarkably, his teams have appeared in the NCAA tournament for thirty consecutive years.

Florida State was, of course, independent until 1992 but since then, they have won 8 conference championships. Dedicated in 2005, Florida State’s baseball team plays on Mike Martin Field at Dick Howser Stadium, the man he succeeded.

I don’t think any list of great college football coaches can be complete without Joe Paterno’s name being somewhere on that list. Joe Pa is an icon in college athletics. Now, at the age of 84, Paterno has coached Penn State since 1966 and has two National Championships and 401 wins to show for it.

His critics say that the game has passed him by but the Nittany Lions, while not the dominating force they once were, continue to win year after year. How long will he coach? I wouldn’t be surprised to see him coach until the hearse drives him away from happy Valley.

I have always been impressed with Frank Beamer of Virginia Tech. Before coming to V Tech in 1987, Beamer coached at Murray State. He has three Big East titles and four ACC championships under his belt. The Hokies played for the National Championship in 1999 but lost to Florida State.

Beamer’s teams are usually known for their superb special teams and strong defenses and have often scored more non-offensive touchdowns during a game than offensive. This has come to be known as “Beamerball”. Beamer was one of the names mentioned in 2001 for the UGA head coaching job and while I am glad we have Richt, Beamer would have been an excellent choice as well.

All right, I will be prepared to hear the boos that will be cascading down on me with this next name- but I can’t help it, you may detest him but his record is tremendous. Nick Saban is one of the best college coaches today.
Son of legendary offensive guru Lou Saban, Nick has been a winner everywhere he’s been. Well, maybe everywhere in the college ranks. Dolphin fans don’t care too much about him, I’m sure. Saban coached collegiately at Michigan State and LSU before he took over the reins at Alabama. He is the only coach that I can think of who has won National Championships at two different schools. Admittedly, he has had some controversial moments in his coaching career like when he said he was not leaving the NFL Dolphins, only to do just that two days later. And he is not always the most likeable person to be around I’m told. But his record on the field speaks volumes when he won’t.

Moving to basketball, there are two names that, in my opinion, stand above all the rest, and they are both hard to spell. Jim Boeheim of Syracuse and Mike (can I please just call him Coach K so I don’t have to spell his name out each time I type it?).

Boeheim has coached the Orangemen since 1976, won more than 850 games, and has one National Championship. He has led Syracuse to the Big Dance in all but seven years of his tenure there and one of those years was due to NCAA violations. But even in the years his team didn’t get selected to the NCAA’s, they went to the NIT. But even more impressive to me is that the graduation rate for his Syracuse players is 94%- a mark only outdone by the other coach in my list.

I never thought I would say that anyone in college basketball coaching was better than the great Dean Smith at UNC, but I now take my hat off to Coach K.
There’s really no need to go into the vast number of honors and awards he and his Duke Blue Devil team have won. I think he is, without question, the best coach in all of college athletics, regardless of the sport, and he just may be the best coach/manager in all of sports.

Don’t want to rub it in, but I told you a few weeks back that Aaron Rodgers was the best quarterback in pro football and he certainly showed it in Super Bowl XLV. It was a good game but why in the world can’t the NFL get someone decent to sing the National Anthem and to do the halftime show. I think one of the service academy glee clubs should do the Anthem. They wouldn’t butcher the words or try to sing notes that aren’t there. Oops! My age is showing again.

Randy Blalock is a columnist for The Barrow Journal. Send comments about this column to rblalock@mindspring.com.

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